Ivie Blog

No place on Earth has produced more fundamental contributions to the development of printing than China. Paper, relief printing, and moveable type—the very foundations of the industry—all emerged from China beginning over 2000 years ago. Today, China is widely recognized as the best place for outsourcing printing services. In this blog series, we will share some tips and key references that will be useful to newbies and pros alike.

Ink Color and Proofing
Process color and Pantone color ink systems are identical between other countries and China.

However, process inks in China generally follow the Japanese standard, so it is not entirely accurate to assume a piece printed in your country will have an identical result in China. You should always see color correct proofs before proceeding to print. Furthermore, in China, depending on the product being made, proofing may be done either by the digital proofing process, probably most common in your country, OR by a traditional film separation method, whereby ‘wet proofs’ are made by applying color in successive passes to the paper specified for production using small, one-color proofing presses. Both processes have their place.

Click here for a comparison of CTF and CTP proofing processes!
http://www.chinaprintingsolutions.com/CTPVersusCTF.htm

That being said, few China factories use real ICC color profiles/press fingerprinting or are practiced in calibrating to a baseline standard like SWOP or FOGRA. Instead, it is common to manage color according to the output curves of individual facility platesetters and adjust images if necessary based on digital proofs produced using the same curves.

If color matching is critical, you’ll want to provide your files early and be prepared to make some adjustments before press time.

Production Tip
Very few Chinese factories actually procure Pantone inks, instead preferring to custom mix process colors to reach the target identified by a Pantone color. It is therefore imperative that you indicate C, U, or M along with the Pantone number to give a visual reference for your color target. Better yet, the ideal solution is to provide a physical printed swatch or Pantone chip to clearly identify the desired end result.

No place on Earth has produced more fundamental contributions to the development of printing than China. Paper, relief printing, and moveable type—the very foundations of the industry—all emerged from China beginning over 2000 years ago. Today, China is widely recognized as the best place for outsourcing printing services. In this blog series, we will share some tips and key references that will be useful to newbies and pros alike.

Paper Size and Weight
Due to differences in sheet sizes for standard paper in China, you may receive less competitive prices for 10′ x 10′ and 12′ x 10′ book sizes. Below is a chart for some book sizes (trimmed size) that may offer you more competitive results in China.

Standard paper weights vary between types of paper and brands of paper. Naturally, the standards between your country and China are not always the same. The chart below provides some standard China weights for a number of common paper types. For Americans, this is significant not only in terms of picking suitable weights, which is easy to procure in China, but also because China weights are metric-based and expressed in grams. Here we have included a rough conversion table in pounds as well as grams. For a more comprehensive paper basis weight conversion chart, please click here.

Money-Saving Tip:
It is nearly always possible to produce a non-standard paper weight and sheet size in accordance with your preferences and/or to optimize the job for lower costs. Batch paper production has a lead time of 2 or 3 weeks, but must be ordered at specific times each month. Therefore, you should plan your paper purchase at least 6 weeks before you begin print production.